Grey Willows
by peppermintspice
Summary: Free! Past AU where Rei and Nagisa are coincidental neighboring farmers. Rei is a colorblind (spoilers oops!) farmer's son who just wants to return home to his friends when his family moves out of town. But what he encounters in this new territory is far beyond his expectations. Maybe he can finally find the color he has searched for all his life. (Reigisa)


Hilo anybody who is reading this! Happy holidays it is a splendid time of year! So with all of the free time available with winter break (such a score!) i decided to ignore my homework and write this totally self indulgent fanfiction that I have been dreaming about for a couple months now. It took me about twenty years to get to the part where they actually meet and for some reason that part came out surprisingly intense? So sorry if this chapter's pretty boring and rambly, it should get better in later chaps promise! Thanks for reading, have an awesome break! :)

It had been miles. An endless expanse of dusky terrain, shy tufts of gray grass struggling against their dry, caked bindings, occasionally breaking the surface only to deflate at the equally desolate surroundings above. The sun hung low in the sky, the only gold, the only pure in this world, poised to escape as soon as it could. Rei was suffocating within the gray himself, feeling the ache of the missing light already.

_He glared down at the dusty ground below him in resignation, petulantly avoiding Sousuke's calm gaze, Rin's deep irises flooding with fire and pain—the only person he knew who could set tears ablaze. _

_He knew his parents couldn't grow here anymore, that there were better land plots in Oregon, he _knew. _But it only twisted the knife deeper in his heart to hear the rational explanation of how it had to be, the blatant ignorance of the life he had built for himself here._

The wagon careened over a small rock, sending all of its contents into a wild lurch. Rei settled his head back against his hands, neglecting to set his jostled glasses in place and barely focusing on the ashen blur the landscape before him had become.

_The comfort and happiness he had somehow managed to conjure back in Montana was a grain of salt to his parents' ambitious business ventures. Even more daunting, yet well hidden, was his ultimate fear that, alone, he did not have the capacity to ever build that back up again. _

"Are you still moping about that cat, Rei? It's been months. We told you we would get you a new one, didn't we?" His mother scoffed from the front seat, her tone cold yet scalding.

"No, Mother, just thinking."

_All he could see was the strangled slate dust. Dust kicking up as the wagon fled their property for the last time, robbing him of a last glimpse of what had been. Rin waving madly, arms reaching forward and ripping at thick air as if to bridge the growing gap between them, dark hair disheveled in the crackling midday air. Sousuke,clear eyes unwavering as Eleanor tosses wildly in his arms; Rei almost resents her for a moment, envious of her insatiable desire to leave for this unknown land. _

Rei quietly washed the lingering dirt from his face and lenses in the cooling night air, eager to rid himself of the dreaded material. From his small sleeping space in the corner, he clutched his thin blanket closer and sighed softly. Just a few miles more.

The sky above was clear and bright on the day they arrived, true to the word of the little almanac his father toted around religiously. "A good omen.." he mumbled under his breath as they steered the small wagon into place. "Well, here it is!" he dropped the reins in satisfaction, gazing up at the stately house Aunt Katherine had left them.

"Our new home." He turned to grin broadly at his family, and Rei couldn't help but offer up a smile himself. The thick grass around him looked healthier than the strangled plains foliage, still gray rather than the lively green he had longed to see, but beautiful in its tangled composition. His mother caught him running his fingers through the thin blades, her eyes crinkling at the edges with adoration and a hint of sadness.

"It's a lovely shade, isn't it darling?" Rei nodded, pushing himself up to stand on his feet. The large house, a bit worse for wear due to its months neglected, towered over him. "What kind of wood is this?" He inquired softly, allowing an idle hand to roam the rough surface.

"It's cedar, dear." She hesitated, answering the unspoken question. "It looks like smooth honey, with a red tint."

_Ah. _He chuckled, casting his eyes down fondly. _Red, like my glasses. Like Rin's hair. So he is here after all._

"Rei! These boxes won't move themselves!" He looked up to find his father juggling far too many packages, slowly inching towards the front door. Hastening towards their little wagon, he hefted several bags into his arms, glancing once again around the wide open expanse that apparently held his future in its dark, cool soil. He sighed, nudging his glasses further up the bridge of his nose with his free hand, and ducked under the structured door frame. It seemed awfully lonely to him.

Even after a week of long hours and difficult work preparing the soil of the interior crops, no one appeared to greet the newly arrived family. In fact, it seemed as if no one even lived in the area. His mother chalked it up to the huge size of their property. At dinner that night, she seemed to have come to a decision on their next plan of action.

"Rei, dear, your father and I are taking a trip into town tomorrow to pick up some supplies and hopefully get ourselves acquainted with the people who live around here—would you like to tag along?" Rei stared down at his plate, feeling his stomach clench up. He wanted so badly to _want_ to go and socialize and maybe fit in for once, but he couldn't bring himself to. Maybe it was just his shy nature, or his overly guarded emotions, but he knew that in the end he would stay home alone as usual.

"Um, sorry, I just don't really feel up to that yet." His mother opened her mouth as if she had something to retaliate with, but his father just smiled softly, placing a firm hand over hers.

"That's fine, son. But would you mind taking the map of our property and marking out the boundary lines while we're gone? It needs to be done soon, and you know how I am with maps."

Rei looked up from his meal gratefully, meeting his father's kind gaze. "Of course."

So he paced along the edges of the plot the next morning, careful and deliberate, tracing shallow rivets in the ground that he knew would someday be the foundations for fences or irrigation canals or whatever idea his father came up with next. The sun beat at his back lightly, glimmering against the dewdrops on the plants like scattered glass.

Rei found himself most enthralled by the woods at the north edge of the property. Just out of bounds, they were cool and inviting. Not gloomy, as one might assume, but enchanting in their stillness.

And yet they were so alive; curling bark, some shrouded in inky shadows, some basking in the thin slivers of light that manage to filter through the canopy; branches he envisioned as a vivid, regal green embarking on a quest to touch the sky, reaching and reaching with impatient, bark-coated fingertips; vines snaking down the trunks of trees like vandals slinking away into the shadows, curling and dancing without cease like hollow, colorless ballerinas.

He could be lost in those woods for hours, as long as he never lost track of the sun. He understood; felt himself to be akin to the dark nature and grounded reality that the endless tree trunks harbored. What he never could comprehend, though, was his need to follow the light; the throbbing pulse of fear he felt when separated from it.

He supposed it was the tantalizing aspect of uncensored color that drew him to it. In his dismal, bleak, overwhelmingly gray world, he desperately sought even the slightest hint of color, despite his rational upbringing and the fact that he _knew _he never really could see it. No matter how many times it was drilled into his head that his views would forever remain as blind to the myriad of hues and tones the world offered, he would only continue to search for his very own light. His gold.

It was the sun itself, and its worryingly low position in the sky that finally reminded Rei of where he was. Deterred from his slight jaunt in the forest, Rei scolded himself for neglecting his duty, stalking back towards the property. He was stopped short by a high, tinkling laugh. It was delicate and free, a wind chime in the breeze.

He stood stock still, silently begging for just one more moment of that beautiful sound. But it was too far away; it wasn't meant for him to hear. He was drawn to it nonetheless. Turning around, he moved toward the voice, soundlessly weaving through the trees until he reached the ones that bordered a neighboring farm.

He knew who it belonged to immediately. His hair was cascading gold, a pure incarnation of the light above. He stood, back to him, small in stature. His thin work clothes hung off him in the midday heat as he leaned against his plow. The jovial voice spoke up once more, and Rei felt his chest seize up beneath his rib cage.

"Alright, sis, I'm comin' in! Don't worry!" Rei hadn't even noticed the girl on the horizon until this mention, and didn't ponder it much more because he was focused too intently on this small blond character.

The boy glanced back at the woods for a moment, sunbeams glinting off his features like a halo. Rei froze up entirely, heart stopping momentarily.

The image was forever emblazoned in his mind—delicate, fox-like features; an open smile, honest and bright; and his eyes. Glittering like the stars at night, they could not be just reflections. They encapsulated the light, they owned it.

Soft hued irises transfixed him, drew him in further. Probably some form of red, judging by the tone, but he found himself not even attempting to identify them. Because they were color. A shade he had never before seen; within it a rainbow of hues and tones and everything he felt he had ever been missing.

It was a single glance. It was seconds. But long after the boy skipped out of sight, Rei remained. Unable to string together coherent thoughts, he was only able to ponder at how he had finally struck gold.

Whether this could be _his gold, _at last, the one he had been searching for since the day he first glimpsed the rays of the sun, was to be decided by the unpredictable whims of the universe.

Yet Rei had already made up his mind.


End file.
